You can’t central plan sex

Thursday 13 February 2025

You probably can centrally plan sex, but China sure doesn’t know how to do it.

China’s population shrank for the third straight year in 2024, even though births rose slightly, underscoring a persistent long-term risk for the economy.

The total number of people in China fell by over 1.39 million to 1.408 billion last year, according to data released by the National Statistics Bureau on Friday.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.